


1,000 Light Years Away

by einsKai



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astronaut!Torao, Colour Symbolism, Critic!Touma, Engagement, Established Relationship, Grief, Inspired by Music, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss, Love, M/M, Memories, Music Symbolism, Musician!Minami, Nostalgia, flower symbolism, missing each other, written for ToraMina Day 2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 12:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/einsKai/pseuds/einsKai
Summary: The distance between them seemed to grow more painful every day, as if every fibre of their combined beings was stretched out across this distance, and that string holding them was growing thinner and thinner.Receiving the emails was a relief, and he found himself reading through the messages full of adventure and affection all too often.





	1,000 Light Years Away

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Today the actual notes are at the end because I feel like that's where they belong!
> 
> If you want to scream at me about anything you can do so on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eins__kai) or [tumblr](https://einskai.tumblr.com/)~
> 
> Have fun reading!
> 
> \- Kai

“Hey Minami”, the letter – or well, e-mail – read.  
“I haven’t even left orbit, but I’m already overwhelmed. There’s something great about knowing that I’m the first human to ever use this ship. I’m the first human to go beyond our system! I’ll be the first to step foot on a planet other than those in our system! When I come back you’ll have to deal with me being in high demand… because I’m the only one who can talk about this.  
I can’t get up yet and walk around – well, not that that’ll be really possible, this thing is cramped after all – so I’m typing this from the seat, but I’ll tell you all about the ship later.  
I love you,  
Torao.

P.S.: I already can’t describe how much I miss you. Thanks for staying with me, even though I won’t be home for years. Seriously, I love you.”

Minami smiled and closed the laptop. It was a special model, one that was able to pick up the encrypted signal that would deliver his fiancé’s messages to him, and the other way around as well.

He missed him too. Of course he did, how could he not? He had been prepared for this though, he had known that Midou Torao was an astronaut in training when he had met him.

During the course of their relationship he had lived through weeklong training where he rarely to not at all heard of his then boyfriend.

He’d be able to handle it for a little longer as well.

Minami pressed ‘reply’ and began typing.

“Dear Midou-san,  
I’m glad to hear that you’re already enjoying your journey. I’d love to hear everything you have to tell me.  
I too am already missing you. Only barely I manage to pick up my guitar to play, because as soon as I do I remember our last evening together – has it really been yesterday? Though it has only been a couple of hours it feels like years that you held me next to the fireplace in the garden. The colour of the flames reflecting in your eyes melted into me and hasn’t left me since.  
I love you too, sincerely, Natsume Minami

P.S.: I might write a song about that evening’s feeling. I’ll ask to deliver it to you as soon as it is finished.”

He read through the message again and decided to send it. They had had to promise that they’d limit their exchanges, as even in this day and age space travel wasn’t affordable and creating a system that’d be able to transfer all the data was even less affordable.

The notification that the messages was received popped up a few seconds later.

It would take longer for the messages to send the farther Torao would get from earth, but Minami had been told that he shouldn’t worry. The people, the team, the crew at the control station knew about their situation and would do their utmost to deliver their messages as soon as it was possible.

Minami stared at the device.

Even though it was just a square black laptop, maybe a little more high-octane than your average laptop, it felt like a national treasure. It was the only connection to his fiancé, to Torao.

 

The next day there was a big article about _Midou Torao, First Human To Enter Deep Space And Set Foot On A Planet In A Different System_ in the newspaper.

It had been all over the internet yesterday already, or actually the whole time before the start of the mission as well, but Minami had stayed away from social media and news sites. It was easier to forget that his fiancé would go on a decade long mission when he wasn’t bombarded with how great that fact was for all of humanity every hour of the day.

Maybe it _was_ great for humanity, and it was definitely Torao’s biggest dream, it was what he had worked for his entire life. He’d been so happy when he had gotten the message that he had been chosen to go on that mission.

Minami wasn’t one to hold him back. He wasn’t clingy, not like last time, where his dependency on the other had ruined his relationship to him. Torao sure had offered though – he knew him too well, knew that Minami had laid awake in bed, fretting about Torao leaving. He had offered various possibilities even.

_“We could marry before I go”, he had said one morning while they were cuddling and watching the sun’s golden light trickle through their entangled fingers. The band on Minami’s hand reflected the light, and the lesser-known music symbol in diamond refracted it to a symphony of colour on their bedroom wall._

_“No”, Minami had said, simple and direct._

_“Why not?”, the rumble of the laughter in the chest under his head had resonated within him for a long while after Torao’s words had faded into the fabric of their covers._

_“Because then you have to come back to marry me”, he had answered._

It had made sense in his head back then, but now in retrospect it sounded silly.

They had considered breaking up too, but Minami really didn’t want that. He _loved_ Torao, he genuinely loved him, and he never wanted to let him go. Even if he wasn’t physically there for some time, it would be fine as long as Minami knew that he was well and would come back to him someday.

And that he would. Torao had promised.

 

Minami went about his days as normally as he could. It was strange having blank space where normally Torao would wake up next to him, where Torao would eat with him, brush his teeth with him, get dressed with him, and kiss him goodbye when he went to work and Minami stayed in his home-studio to make music, but it was fine. He knew that Torao in his spaceship was surely feeling even weirder, with nothing familiar with him but a photo of them together at their last and only holiday.

They had gone to the sea-side, a few hours West from their home and had watched the sun set in the sea. Minami had been inspired for days after that, the twirl of colours the sky had presented to them and Torao’s smile as he watched the waves crash against the rocks below them, at peace, finally at peace, had filled his heart and mind with melodies of great harmony and significance.

He wanted to go again when Torao was back.

 

Soon the first year had passed, and his fiancé had finally arrived at his destination.

 

“Today I landed on the planet! It’s really strange, seeing a world that’s so different from home. The texture of everything is different, and the colours!  
I can breathe here, and other things can too, apparently. I took a picture of a squirrel-like alien. They don’t seem hostile, so I approached it and fed it something I thought looked like a nut. I sent a few pictures of me and my new friend to earth, so it might turn up in a newspaper sooner or later, watch out for it.  
Other than that the planet is pretty much vacant except for some bushes and grass. There’s a forest structure in the north of my base though, so I might find other species there. It’s interesting to wake up in the morning in an environment where you’d expect birds to sing, but there’s nothing... I’ll have to test the theory, but I think despite me being able to breathe here the atmosphere might be too dense for flying species to exist. There should be other mammals too, I’ve found traces, but they’re all smaller than the squirrels, and probably shy. And there’s insects too, but none have attempted stinging or biting me yet – you know how mosquitoes always love my blood more than they take yours? Well, maybe this planet just really loves me.  
I miss earthly sounds, especially music, but luckily, I have a database with all kinds of songs and sounds. Your songs are my favourite though. Is the new one, Tears of Gold, doing well?  
Love you, Torao

P.S.: Maybe I should name little squirrel-man after you, so I can feel like I can talk to you more often.”

 

Minami looked at the picture in the newspaper fondly. There were two pictures to be precise, one slightly blurry picture of something that looked like a greenish brown squirrel with enlarged eyes, and another one. That one Minami framed and hung up in their kitchen. It showed Torao himself, the squirrel (now actually named Natsume – but only Minami knew that) sitting on his head.

His fiancé looked so happy in that picture. Minami could feel his smile radiate warmth through the paper and the glass screen that separated him from tracing that face of ink.

The song Torao had mentioned listening to had actually catapulted itself to the top of the charts. Apparently, the warm golden tone of the song managed to move people, and the theme of losing a loved one at least temporarily, letting go of something, despite wanting to hold on to it desperately resonated within people as well.

Soon Minami had received offers to create a full album of his own.

 

“Dear Midou-san,  
My song has been doing well. I signed a contract for a full album yesterday. Please listen to that when it comes out.  
The landlord called recently. He asked if I had already gotten sick of waiting for you and if I didn’t want to move out, so he could sell the house. Of course I politely declined. I want you to come home to a house you know, that’s why I’m not rearranging the furniture either. The only addition I got is an electric drum set. You’d enjoy it, I’m sure. I’ll teach you how to play when you get back.  
In love, Natsume Minami”

 

Living without Torao was strange, because he was everywhere.

Every other week there’d be a newspaper article, there were countless threads of every little piece of information that was fed to the media, and people were beginning to call themselves Torao’s fans.

It was odd, because for many people Torao was omnipresent, while for Minami it was the opposite. Every picture, every article, every starry-eyed child screaming about how they wanted to be just like Midou Torao one day, rubbed salt into the wound that had been left when Torao had boarded the spaceship and taken Minami’s heart with him.

The distance between them – a thousand light years – seemed to grow more painful every day, as if every fibre of their combined beings was stretched out across this distance, and that string holding them, connecting them was growing thinner and thinner.

Sometimes he thought he had seen him, standing in an alley, leaning against a house, or sitting in a street café – but it was never reality, just a trick played by the light, nothing feasible – and every time it happened he cursed his treacherous mind for letting him hope.

Receiving the emails was a relief, a breather from the constant strain. And Minami found himself reading through the messages full of adventure and affection all too often.

He truly missed Torao.

 

“Minami,  
Today I returned from a hiking mission. I explored the mountains south of my base, and I can only say, it was breath-taking. Remember our holiday, and how you liked the sunset so much? Well, something in the clouds (haven’t done too many tests on that, but maybe I’ll find out soon) is working against the filtering of the light as it is usually is on earth. Sunsets here are _green_ , and I swear, you can’t imagine that beauty. I wish I could show you in person… you could probably put it into words better than I can. Maybe you’d write a song about it called ‘Emerald Clouds’ or something, and from the melody you could feel the fluffy green cotton candy of that sunset…  
I’m rambling, that title is stupid. You’re the artist for a reason. But believe me, it was amazing. Hope you had a good week, even without my emails. How is your third album going?  
Love you, Torao

P.S.: Let’s go see the sunset together again when I come back.”

 

“Dear Midou-san,  
There’s a new bar down the street. I haven’t gone inside yet, even though I could now (can you believe that? We have never had alcohol together, because I was still underage when you left. Now I could drink, but I’d prefer to have my first drinks together with you) yet it looked nice from the outside. Inumaru-san (I spoke to you about him, he is a critic who described my songs as ‘of such intensity as hearing Marilyn sing for her president’ and an unlikely friend I made over the last few months) told me that it was fantastic.  
Let’s go there together after your return.  
In love, Natsume Minami”

 

The ninth year was coming to an end quicker than he had anticipated, and Minami was ecstatic. He would see Torao again in no time! The ship had left the planet a few months ago and was on the direct course to earth. This summer it would safely land, and then he could finally see his fiancé again. The last few months too felt like they were gone in a blink – all his songs were about anticipation, and he was thinking about beginning to plan their wedding. Until one hot summer day, a member of the crew called him.

“You should come to the control central as quickly as possible”, the voice on the other end of the line said.

“What? Why?”, Minami was confused. He had been in the middle of composing.

“We have audio-contact with him.”

“Really?”, Minami felt his heart pound in his chest. Audio contact meant that he was close. “That means he’ll be home soon?!”

He was already on his way to the car, the guitar on the passenger seat. He didn’t know why he took it with him, it was a hunch.

“Drive carefully”, the person said, “See you at the gates in a few.”

The drive wasn’t long, and over the boiling concrete the flickering air formed images of his loved one.

He arrived at the central and was taken to the monitoring room, where he was placed in front of a microphone with a pair of headphones.

”Minami“, Torao’s voice was barely distinguishable from the static, but it was him. He was speaking, and he was close enough that they could talk.

Minami swallowed. He had waited ten years to hear this voice again. He had had recordings, and the occasional video message that his fiancé sent to the entire earth, but never this, never his name breathed from the man he loved so much.

“Yes”, he said, his voice not even loud enough to be picked up by his own ears, rushing with blood pumping through sheer emotion, excitement. His heart’s rhythm was going crazy, and he couldn’t contain it, he was so happy! Torao was coming back!

“I can see earth”, the voice said, and it was the only thing Minami could hear. “It really is so much more beautiful from space… makes you appreciate what you have. Are you waving already?”

Minami laughed, a half-choked sob followed right after. He was so overwhelmed. “Of course”, he said. “If you want to, I’ll go outside and wave until you come home.”

“Ah…”, Torao said. The static grew less prominent. Minami could hear something else in the voice now. He knew this tone, had he heard it before, when he had been left behind and never looked at again by the only person he had ever admired.

“What’s wrong?”, he asked.

“There… has been a problem with the ship”, Torao said. “Minami… I’m sorry.”

“A problem? What does that mean?”, he asked. His heartbeat was now the opposite of before. A dying bird in a cage, fluttering its clipped wings one last time.

“I’m running on the last hour of oxygen”, Torao said. “It’ll take me at least six hours to get to earth, probably more.”

“Midou-san–“

“Torao. Call me by my first name Minami, will you?”

Minami felt the dying bird rage inside of him. It didn’t want to give up, banged its head, its claws, its wings, its beak against the bars of the cage.

“Torao”, he breathed. His eyes were getting wet. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I didn’t know earlier. I knew there had been a leak in the spare tank, but usually the other one should’ve been enough. The team knew too, but we decided not to tell you unless it was inevitable. No need to worry my cute fiancé, you know?”

“Stop joking!”, Minami was angry now, like the bird, just like the bird in his chest. “How can you say things like that when this is the last time –“, his voice broke. “When this is the last time we’ll speak?”

In the smallest voice he had ever heard himself use he muttered: “When you’re dying.”

“Sorry, sorry”, Torao said. The voice was already fading, Minami could hear it now. He didn’t have long. “I’m sorry Minami. I’m sorry I can’t marry you. I’m sorry I won’t be able to listen to the welcome song you’ve written – don’t be too surprised, I know you. I’m sorry I can’t adopt a cat with you, I’m sorry we can’t grow old together. I’m so sorry Minami.”

He was crying too; Minami could hear it. The static had now been replaced by the song he had written at the beginning of Torao’s journey. It was strange hearing those golden chords now, through a speaker from space. When the person he had written about was dying hundreds of kilometres away, and he’d never see him again.

“’Tears of Gold’”, Torao sighed. “It was always my favourite. I probably listened to it longer than any other song in existence.”

“I’ll sing for you”, Minami said. He had his guitar with him, what a hunch that had been. The other instruments would be missing, but who cared. His loved one was dying. Perfection sure wasn’t going to help in this situation.

“You’re my gold too”, Torao said. “I love you so much Minami. I wish I could’ve come home to you.”

“I love you too”, Minami said, and his voice cracked. He hated that he was showing this weakness in front of the entire crew of the control station. “I love you Torao. I love you.”

He had finished producing his guitar from its bag. “I’ll sing it for you, so don’t die, alright? I’ll sing forever if you just _stay_.”

The music vanished from the call, and Minami began to sing.

Around him the control station erupted in chaos at _something_ , but Minami didn’t know what, because he was occupied. He was occupied with playing, playing not for his life, but for Torao’s. He had even stopped crying, just for this song. Torao’s last.

He finished on the last note. It dissipated into the air and got lost in the silence from the headphones that greeted him.

Minami felt like it was the last sound on earth, that everything was over now, and that there never would be another sound ever again.

“Torao?”, he asked. “Midou-san?”

No answer.

He looked over to the person who had shown him the way here.

They shook their head. “He has lost consciousness. Any impromptu rescue mission would be futile. There’s nothing we can do.”

Cold, dark emptiness spread through his stomach, up his lungs and into his head. His eyes were watering again, but he contained, controlled the tears.

 

He couldn’t remember how he got home, but he did remember sitting on the sofa in the apartment that had been a home to him as long as he still expected Torao to show up again, when he had space to fill with visions of the smiling, laughing, _living_ Midou Torao, and not empty, dead space, where nothing would ever be again.

The TV was on and he was wrapped into one of the thick blankets Torao had insisted on getting one winter evening more than a decade ago, because he claimed that Minami got cold easily.

It was summer now, but Minami felt cold regardless. Inside of him there was a nuclear winter raging, and he didn’t feel like a spring would ever thaw his heart.

A broken picture frame, shattered glass over a smile that once promised warmth.

The flickering colours on TV showed the recovery of Midou Torao’s spaceship that had landed in the ocean just as planned, with just one less person on board than was planned.  
They called him a hero, because despite imminent death he had managed to get all experiment results and samples from the planet to earth safely – disregarding of his own panic, his own pain, and his own heartbreak at never being able to see his fiancé again.

In the ten years between Torao’s departure and the return of the ship, Minami had become well-known in the music industry. During the departure nobody had cared about him, but now the news outlets had dug up the story of tragic Natsume Minami, fiancé of dead international hero Midou Torao.

He had cut the phone cord and threw his mobile phone into a bowl of dish soap water, when the calls had become too much. The emails he could ignore, he didn’t have to look at them, but he knew that they too were bombarding his inbox.

It was all so surreal.

He was going to bury his fiancé; his loved one he had only talked to through emails the last decade.

It was unfair. He didn’t deserve this.

He wanted him back. He just wanted Torao back here with him, to hold him and ask him to tell him about his trip to space, to take in the words and to spin melodies from them and their stories. He’d give up anything for that to happen. His voice. His hands. Both.  
Minami didn’t believe in any god, but he was willing to pray to all of them, if they would give him Torao back.

He slumped back into his seat. The TV screen went dark with a press of a button, and the silence in the room aligned with the silence in his heart.

There was nothing he could do. Nothing would bring Torao back, nothing would make him ever feel better about this. It felt like space itself, the only thing that Torao had loved more than he loved Minami, had personally come and ripped Torao away from him.

Gone with him was Minami’s heart, his soul, his music. He could still play, with sheet music, but there was no drive, no desire to create, to recreate, make something on his own.

Music died with love.

 

He sang at the burial.

’Tears of Gold‘ seemed to be the only song he could sing anymore, and it being Torao’s favourite made it perfect.

The other guest’s speeches were too long, too cold, too boring. Minami felt like none of them actually cared about Torao – though he knew better. He had talked to his siblings, and they did love their little brother to death. It was just that none of them understood Minami’s pain, and couldn’t appeal to it in their talking about the dead.

He left as quickly as possible, only to come again later, to place some chrysanths – the ‘golden flower’ that promised loyal love when it came in white – on the gravestone littered with thousands of flower arrangements and candles of people who called themselves Torao’s ‘fans’, as if they had ever known him enough to idolise him like they did.

 

 

He was lonely, alone in their apartment. _His_ apartment now. He should move out. The place was steeped in Torao, and he didn’t want to be reminded of him every single moment of being.

Yet somehow, he never actually did.

One side of the bed always stayed cold, but he never got a smaller one.

One cup was never filled with anything, but he never threw it away.

 

He started composing again. Every song tasted like tears and loss, but he was composing, he was singing, he was making music.

The first album he sold after that fateful summer was called ‘Journey with No Return’ and it was a world hit.

He could’ve moved out then, he had the money, but he still didn’t.

When a friend of his, the critic Inumaru Touma, asked him why he stayed in the apartment of a dead man, he answered:

“Even if I know he isn’t coming, it feels as if he has somewhere to return to.”

 

 

And Minami could live with that. Endless waiting for someone who wouldn’t return home from space, someone who’s last personal records were the email conversations about music and alien plants on a world far away from this one, those emails Minami read religiously, someone who had loved Minami as much as Minami still loved him.

But he could live. He was alive and making music, doing what he loved, like he had always done, and he didn’t plan on ever stopping. It was easier than he would’ve thought it would be – because he knew that this was what Torao had wanted for him.

 

And sometimes, when it was the middle of the night and Minami could hear ‘Tears of Gold’ play in the distant depths of his mind, he could feel the mattress dip next to him, and a protective arm sling around his mid together with that familiar voice that whispered to him:

 

 

_「   “Dear Midou-san,_  
_This will be the last message I’ll send._  
_It has been so long since you last answered me, and even longer since we last saw each other._  
_Torao, I went to the seaside a while ago, to breathe the salt again, and I sat in the place that’s in the picture you took with you when you left for space. It was a strange feeling. I thought I could never go there again, yet I managed to do it. It was peaceful, and nice, just like when we went. But… I really wish you were here. I miss you._  
_Maybe one day we will see each other again, but until then, please know that I’m alright. I know that you were worried about that._  
_I still love you._  
_Minami 」_

“I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This is based off the credit song from the video game Slime Rancher (they share a title as well)!
> 
> I remembered that song existed and thought 'Why not make it tragic?', and here we are!
> 
> This time I'm quite proud of my description of grief. 
> 
> Please tell me what you thought!
> 
> \- Kai


End file.
